It’s not often we get good opportunities to make long-range falsifiable bets against mainstream beliefs about important issues.
Financial markets are full of such opportunities.
waveman
Karma: 1,732
It is really hard, especially as these highly emotive situations tend to result in the frontal cortex shutting down due to blood supply being diverted. Thus you see otherwise smart people saying unbelievably stupid things.
My heuristics.:
1. Are they actually experts? Look at their track record. Have they been able to anticipate future events?
Did they say that a Russian invasion was likely? Did they predict the fall of communism in Eastern Europe? Were they sceptical about past hoaxes like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Iraq WMD hoax, the “Itaqis ripping babies out of incubators” hoax? How sceptical about the claims Trump colluded with the Russians on the election? What was their track record on covid?
Have policies they advocated worked? Did they support the invasion of Libya and did they anticipate the results?
2. Other influences on their stated views. Do their views seem to reflect the ideological landscape? Are their views predictable from the ideological landscape? e.g. Some were against the Trump vaccine but suddenly all for the Biden vaccine, even though it was the same vaccine? Are they for the science in some areas but against it in other areas?
In general (2) (being dominated by ideology) trumps (1) any level of actual skill.
Media can be OK on some issues but totally ideologically or financially determined in other areas.
Partly the problems described here are a function of scale and time, I think. They occur when it is hard to link a person’s actions to real world results, as in very large organizations and those that have grown more complex over time. This may explain people’s experiences that it is not like this <where I work>.
In the early days (1970s) in IT it was not really like this even in large corporations. And in small organizations it is usually not so much like this either, except to the extent that they are dependent on maze-type organizations.
Large slabs of the quotes above (I read it all) could be taken verbatim from numerous organizations I was involved with.
Reading this was one of those experiences where you suspected something, but still retained some shreds of hope that it wasn’t so. And now you know that it is so. The covd19 pandemic also produced a lot of those types of experiences for me.
I am coming around to the view that any study whose methods are not prepublished should be assumed to be p-hacked.
I looked at the chapter on bullying and I found the methodology weak, given the huge inherent issues with passive observation.
It is really really hard to “control” for other factors and their efforts were quite lame. Several particular problems appear. First they correct for other factors one factor at a time. This is a failure mode when multiple factors are relevent at the same time e.g. IQ and poor parenting. Second they make no allowance for errors in measurement of factors. As one example they correct for childhood IQ to exclude IQ as a factor that may both lead to being bullied and that may be harmful independently of bullying. But they do not correct for measurement error. Any measurement of factor X will have error and thus tests based on the measurement will understate the effect of the actual factor X. In the particular case of IQ, childhood IQ is not very highly correlated to IQ in adulthood and thus is a poor proxy for IQ in adulthood. It is also poorly correlated to parental IQ and thus heavily fails to capture effects operating via shared IQ genes in the parents.
See Judea Pearl’s book “Causality” for a detailed discussion of these issues and what a proper causal model looks like.
I would not base any serious decison on the findings in the book. They are as likely to be anti-knowledge as real knowledge IMHO.
are the “adjusted earnings over the last 10 years” adjusted for inflation?
Generally CAPE past earnings are adjusted to inflation.
Historically the stock market has responded badly over time to a rapid change upwards in inflation particularly if interest rates rise correspondingly, due to valuation effects (“net present value”) . Subsequently once the market has fallen it tends to act as a reasonable inflation hedge. Typically this occurs around the point when Time Magazine has a front cover saying something like “The Death of Equities”.
Different stocks respond differently to inflation. Consider the analogy of the Nifty Fifty of the late 1960s and the high flying tech stocks of today.
TINA. There is no alternative.
When required to be fully invested this is trueish.
However you can sit in cash while no appealing investments exist. And buy in size when prices become more appealing.
inb4 market timing is not possible
Have a look at Warren Buffett’s track record and the amount of cash he held in early 2000 and now.
There is virtually no information here that would allow us to infer how useful your posts might be. So I have no idea.
If you do post, I would suggest limiting posts that mostly talk about yourself and contain little information that is of general interest. I suggest focusing on the question “how can I add value to others”.
Consider link posting a choice few of your existing material to see what the reaction is.
First you would get a breakup of the particular strengths and weaknesses that you have (similar to getting an IQ test it is not just a number but the breakup into areas of strengths and weaknesses can be quite useful).
Second they would be able to help with strategies to deal with the ADHD.
Third it gives you optionality about taking meds i.e. it gives you the option to try them lateron.
Great article. Thank you!
I also highly commend reading the original paper referenced in the article. (full text available here https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/neuro.01.1.1.006.2007/full) Reading the original paper was quite a revelation to me. How many things are parsimoniously explained by this hypothesis.… how many things suddenly make sense. As opposed to the jumble of unrelated facts seen in most academic summaries of Autism.
There is of course opposition to the hypothesis but there has also been considerable confirmation as a look at google scholar will easily show.
Indeed at a first approximation technology is about finding cool ways to use cheap energy.
Solar power in particular has plummeted in cost by many orders of magnitude
You need to take into account the base here. Same with batteries. If something goes from ludicrously expensive to just plain very expensive, it is not so impressive.
I spent 3 months trying to put together a picture of what a 100% renewable energy economy would look like. When you take into account a) the need to build and maintain the RE infrastructure using RE (currently it is almost all done with fossil fuels for cost reasons) b) the vast infrastructure needed per Gw generated due to the low density of RE sources, c) intermittency which means you require a lot of redundancy, a lot of storage, a lot of cables, and backup dispatchable power (ask Germans right now!). The need for backup dispatchable power means that even if RE were free, it would still not be cheaper, because you still have to have the backup dispatchable power stations. So the RE cost is additional,
The total system cost is enormous.
FWIW my conclusion was a minimum 30-50% hit on living standards, and at worst it cannot actually work. If you want to bring the whole world up to 1st world living standards it is not at all possible.
> [solar] effectively forever
Solar installations have a very limited life span of the order of 10 years. And a very serious waste disposal problem. Similarly with wind turbines.
So no, not forever. While OP alludes to “maintenance costs” this by no means captures the extent of the problem.
For clarity I think AGW is a real, serious, man-made problem. But that does not imply that a solution is easy, or even possible. In any case, irrespective of the AGW issue, fossil fuels are running out and we need a solution, or we will be forced to dramatically reduce energy use and living standards.
People will say you can have a high living standard while consuming little energy. OK then, show me a country with very high living standard and low energy use. And 10kw/person is a lot of energy.
Limitations of the study of sunscreen which make it inconclusive −
1. They only measured blood levels during summer. They would have declined in winter, and were not actually that terrific in either group even at the end of summer, though not at the levels of frank deficiency. Differences would have widened over winter and with ongoing use/non-use of sunscreen over time, as vitamin D is stored in body fat.
2. The study was small and short term and thus major effects could show up as N.S. E.g the 50% greater increase in the placebo group of over 70s was not found “statistically significant”. The confidence intervals were very wide so the result should be seen as inconclusive and tending towards sunscreen reducing D levels rather than definitively showing no major effect over time.
Also endorphins (opiate type things).
This is why a friend described taking heroin as like being “bathed in golden sunlight”.
I find this post naive, like much writing on weight management.
I have struggled with my weight for 40 years (BMI currently 26, slightly overweight but strangely enough the level at which death rates are lowest). And I have read just about every book on the subject and cubic meters of academic papers. Perhaps I have learned something.
> things that will help
I tried all, yes all, those things over the years. Some worked, a bit, temporarily and none worked permanently. I agree that they are plausible stories but they are nothing more.
What this and most writing on diet ignore is that weight management is tightly controlled by the body and lower brain, almost entirely out of conscious control. Yes you can eat less for a while, just as you can consciously stop breathing for a while. But in the end willpower has almost zero effect.
Feedback mechanisms operate through many mechanisms—by regulating appetite. by downregulating metabolism, willingness to expend energy, feelings of fatigue, sleepiness etc. If you have not woken at night having been dreaming about eating, with the only thought in your head being “I don’t care what happens I must eat now” you have not experienced hunger. In Ancel Keys’ WWII study on starvation subjects were found literally eating from garbage cans after a while.
When people are young they find it far easier to control weight. As you get older it gets harder. BY 50-60 virtually everyone is struggling. So don’t declare victory too soon. https://politicaldictionary.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/mission-accomplished-moment.jpg
The idea that eating one extra cookie a day voluntarily will have the results predicted by a simplistic mathematical model is not even wrong. You see this in studies where they try to get people to gain weight—it is just as hard for many people to gain weight as it is for others to lose weight. the nody adapts and counters any destablizing inputs.
As Ey pointed out no-one thinks that weight loss is worth the price if it means you effectively lose 15-20 points of IQ because your body has decided to economize on energy supplies to the brain. And no-one thinks that weight loss is good if you mostly lose lean body mass, bone mass and your immune system is weakened. What people want to lose is fat. This is a very different thing from weight loss.
So what is the solution? I have lost 15kg of fat over the years (10 kg of weight when you take into account +5kg muscle).
I do not claim any of the things below are a magic bullet. Such a thing does not exist. But these things have helped me.
1. Eat a nutritionally rich diet. If you are lacking nutrients you will be hungry. Something like the diet recommended in “Eat Rich Live Long”. Just ignore the author’s views on covid19. Protein is often the nutrient in short supply.
1a. In general try to avoid empty calories. Sorry this includes wine and beer, even ‘craft’ beer.
2. Limit carbohydrates to the lowest level consistent with feeling OK. Note that a period of adaption is needed. Especially avoid sugar/fructose. You do not need keto but low carb changed the game for me.
3. Limit polyunsaturated fats especially Omega 6 “vegetable oils”. Like sugars they are nutritionally barren and do not provide satiety commensurate with calories. They are essential but only to 2-3% of calories and it is virtually impossible on a diet with real food to go under this. In contrast saturated fat produces great feelings of satiety and is IMO metabolically benign.
4. Eat seldom e.g. once or twice a day. This helps your body learn to burn fat.
5. A combination of small amounts of intense exercise and large amounts of light exercise such as walking. I walk about 6km/day and do weightlifting. But rest days are important too.
6. It seems to take about 2 years for the body to adapt to your new level of fat. In the meantime you will be hungry. But after the adaption (IMHO due to a reduction in the number of fat cells—contrary to medical orthodoxy) things get a lot better.
7. Get plenty of sleep and limit stress and have pleasure in your life. If you are miserable and stressed you are far more likely to overeat comfort food.
8. Avoid toxic environments like fast food outlets, most cafes, restaurants etc. The focus on hyper-palatability combined with hyper-calories and hypo-nutrition is terrible.
9. Be aware that much nutritional advice, including that delivered by captured regulatory agencies, is warped out of recognition by financial agendas, and various other ideological agendas (e.g. that coming out of the College of Nutritional Evangelism, now renamed Loma Linda University, whose doctrines seem to be inspired by 19th century religious fantasies that held that everyone including the lions were vegans in the Garden of Eden). The whole medical field is also very prone to capture by “Great Men” who dominate the field for decades for reasons utterly removed from the correctness of their theories.
“Here’s what that looks like in the context of exponential growth:”
True but actually it is worse than this. As places like Australia are finding, it is not just a matter of a different growth rate. Measures that stopped the pandemic in its tracks before fail completely in the face of delta.
I would also point out that this is looking a bit like the Spanish Flu (which apparently actually started in the US midwest). Later variants were more infectious and attacked younger people more severely.
I can attest from personal experience that you do not want to get long covid. There is a view that either you die or you are fine—nothing could be further from the truth.
This is a long way from being over.
“I worry that recently I’ve lacked sufficient skin in the game. Everyone I personally care about is vaccinated or young enough that they don’t need vaccination, so the real sense of danger is largely gone.”
[Quotes because editing after using “>” for quotes is totally broken here.]
The strategies being employed at the moment in countries partially but not sufficiently vaccinated are to a close approximation the optimum for evolving viruses that are more transmissible to vaccinated people. We have a huge number of infected and a huge number vaccinated in the same population thus the maximal evolutionary pressure and opportunity.
So it is somewhat likely—hard to tell how likely—that variants that are resistant to the vaccines will appear.
When a disease is only slowly transmissible there is an evolutionary incentive for it to become less ( and less quickly) fatal. However diseases that are easily transmitted have far less incentive to become less quickly fatal e.g. cholera in some parts of the world.
My conclusion is that given the risk that a more transmissible, more vaccine resistant and more deadly variant will appear, everyone has skin in the game.
Not to mention the “long covid” syndrome which is very nasty and fairly prevalent in young people. And that we really have little idea of the long term consequences of non-fatal infections in young people.
I remember when Chicken Pox was considered a mild and harmless illness. Tell that to people who have suffered years of excruciating pain from shingles as a result of Chicken Pox later in life.
This was, I think, a reasonable characterisation of wikipedia in the early days. Things are very different now.
You have to navigate a gauntlet of deletionistas, poorly defined rules, gatekeepers, and political biases. I gave up a couple of years ago. The most difficult aspect is the arbitrary rules about what sources are authoritative and what are not.
One small example: You are (or were when I looked) required to refer to male genital mutilation as “circumcision” and are not allowed to refer to it as “male genital mutilation”. The female version may not be referred to as “circumcision” and must be called “female genital mutilation”. The opinions of the doctors who make money from this operation on males must be deferred to as definitive. Basically I found everything was like this.
You are not allowed to refer to primary sources such as journal articles but must only refer to secondary sources such as textbooks or newspapers, which are often out of date, biased or wrong. You have the ridiculous situation where people have tried to correct their own date of birth by supplying a copy of their birth certificate and this was rejected. In at least one case, the person had to arrange for their date of birth to be mentioned in a newspaper and then it was accepted.
In fields where there is no political controversy things are not so bad. But you are still subject to the deletionistas who will find any possible reason to nuke your hard work. And wikipedia’s view that there is a definitive version of the truth on any given issue makes it utterly hopeless at covering anything that is controversial. I am certain that wikipedia of the early C17 would be presenting the geocentric view of the universe as definitively true.
Well worth reading the linked material—quite damning.
Actually non-autistic people are quite extreme in many ways when you look at it closely.
Here is my spoof DSM6 entry as illustration
From DSM-VI: Hyper-Social (Allistic) Spectrum Disorder
HSSD is a syndrome in which there is an over-focus on social phenomena at the expense of other aspects of the world. Contrast with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, which is in many ways the opposite.
Diagnosis: Any 5 of the following are present:
Inability to express self clearly; use of ambiguous and vague language; discomfort with clear language
Obsessive interest in knowing personal details of acquaintances or strangers e.g. celebrities, or even fictional characters
Unfounded belief in being able to read other people’s minds, in particular to know if someone is lying or not.
Difficulty in thinking in a systematic logical way, e.g. to do math or program computers
Tendency to try to bend and stretch rules for no obvious reason. Discomfort with accurately following instructions and processes.
Forms beliefs based on the opinions of others rather than on facts and evidence
Tendency to affiliate with groups and to align all opinions to the group
Frequently lies for social convenience
Preoccupied with social status and “looking the part”
Focus on status symbols, and symbols of virtue and group affiliation
Focus on appearances more than underlying reality
Intolerance of diversity of opinion
Intolerance towards people who do not have HSSD
Spends large amounts of time on shallow “social” activities with little actual content. May lead to destructive activities such as substance abuse e.g. alcohol, and over-eating.
Lack of interest in mastering difficult, especially technical, subjects in depth
Tendency to stare into people’s eyes, and to believe that this gives great insight into the other person’s mind. Usually unaware that this can create discomfort in the other person.
Tendency to think that staring into people’s eyes demonstrates trustworthiness